When art’s at the heart of your business growth, it’s easier for you to engage with your audience.
If you view yourself as a business owner, it’s easy to get bogged down in spreadsheets and best practices. Generic will do when that’s all there’s time for. Sure, you can get ChatGPT to guide you. AND you can bet your bottom dollar that the generic ideas generated are from a summation that your audience has seen a million times before.
Generic won’t cut it. No one knows this better than an artist. So when you view yourself as an artist, your marketing focus shifts from “churn posts fast” to connecting with your audience.
When your business is your art, the work itself is fulfilling. It’s your craft, a vocation. No one knows this better than a solopreneur.
When you’re a solopreneur you’re basically staging a one-person show and playing all the parts: The CEO, the intern, the operator and the marketing department.
No one should have to do a full-time marketing job for free. Yet being a solopreneur often means you have to.
So how do you do social media with soul without it draining you?
How do you share the art from your heart in a way that it connects to your audience best?
You make it creative and collaborative.
That’s exactly how my 2026 started.
Meet Chloe Holloway
I met Chloe in 2017 for an art poetry film I wrote and directed. She was part of our women’s collective of Rebella: beautiful rebels. We made art for the sake of art. For a unique shared experience. To immortalize a moment in time. There was nothing business about it. We simply shared the same sentiment: Beauty is healing.
The poem was called “Like a snake sheds skin,” and so it’s fitting that 9 years later, throughout our own seasons of change, we’ve reunited at the tail end of the Snake year to come together again.
Our first collaboration took us to the colorful streets of Bo-Kaap for a social media training day.
Beauty in Bo-Kaap
During Covid lockdowns, when the world shut down, the red door opened up. A small group of mothers banded together to make a big change. Forced out of necessity, they said goodbye to salon jobs and hello to their own businesses in Bo-kaap. Inside this private sanctuary, they focused on individual client attention rather than fast commercial growth.
Over the past six years, they have built and sustained a separate business in the shared space. Learning how to run every part of an independent practice, from booking and POS systems to social media marketing, property maintenance, and ongoing training. On top of personally taking care of each client themselves. Against the odds, the collective still stands, marking six years on a solid foundation.
The space is shared by four distinct businesses:
Skincare by Nadine, called “With you in mind.“
The problem is that each business is run by a solopreneur so there’s very little time to run the entire marketing department, let alone social media too. The women were overwhelmed with little to no time for complex content creation.
So, in January 2026, Chloe and I stepped in to support. We brought some of that rebel magic to dare to do social media differently. We shared some of the art from our hearts, backed by cutting-edge international market research and consumer insights from Creatrix.
This is the complete breakdown.
How to do Social Media with Soul
We blended advanced strategy with beginner social media and hands-on content creation to give the businesses a boost.
How? By starting where we wanted to finish. Through bringing the best in the world to Bokaap.
Here’s what we did:
Beginner Social Media Strategy
#1 The Postcard Approach:
Move away from hard selling. Instead, think of posts as casual “wish you were here” postcards to stay in touch with clients and show moments from a day in the life in Bokaap and behind the scenes at work.
Result?
Low-friction, easy-to-make content.
By spending just 5 minutes on a Monday or Friday, taking simple photos of the surroundings (like the Bo-Kaap area), your coffee, or the aesthetic of the salon you’re using what you already have and not going out of your way to create posts.
#2 Good Samaritan Content:
Take quick photos or videos of your colleagues’ work (e.g., cool nails or hair) as you walk past. This builds your brand’s image as supportive and professional without focusing solely on yourself.
Result?
Less posting through collaboration posts. The diversity of multiple businesses in one space provides a natural opportunity for cross-promotion and shared content. Instead of posting daily, collaborate with the other businesses in the shared space. Sharing someone else’s work once a week or a month allows you to access each other’s audiences with less effort.
Content Coordination Tip:
Use a shared WhatsApp group to drop photos and videos, making the process feel easy, less serious, and sharable between the collective.
The Advanced Version
This strategy uses Creatrix software for global trends to maximize sales and visibility.
Creatrix Content Strategy:
Rather than guessing, the software translates why certain posts work into specific instructions on what to say and do. Creatrix can analyze competitors, aspirational brands (like Sundays or Mesosetic), or hashtags (like #beautyreset) to identify top-performing posts.
Result?
A 3-month experiment to see if high-intent content creation directly impacts the bottom line and increases sales.
Only post what works best and leave the rest
With the ideas for beginner posting sorted, we turned to Creatrix to show us what’s working best.
We decided on the hashtag #beautyreset to start the 2026 campaigns with. Got Creatrix to run an audit from 1st January, analyze the top posts, and then apply them to each business. Here they are:
#beautyreset
#1 Pics of your top service gone wrong and a pic of how you do it right!
This idea is easy peasy because you don’t need to create anything. Just google pics of treatments gone wrong and post a carousel collection of botched jobs with the last one done by you, done right!
Or make a Canva post of before and after, just like the #1 post example with Kristen Davis.
Then we asked Creatrix to take the top posts and generate a creative strategy based on them
Creatrix Creative Strategy
The Ultimate Beauty Reset Guide is an excellent idea because it provides a cohesive posting theme for the entire year.
The ultimate beauty / skincare / haircare / lash / hair extension / guide
Each business owner has a top requested service (I like to call, the Money Maker) so we listed out each businesses top service.
Like hydrofacials, followed by laser hair removal (specifically full-body packages), lash extensions, and hair extensions. Each service has a lifecycle that keeps the client returning. For example, the maintenance on hair extensions includes: choosing the right extensions, root colors, cuts, removal, reapplication, etc. And so each part of the lifecycle can become an ideal individual post or video.
Posted over the course of a few weeks or months, this forms an Ultimate Beauty Reset Guide for each business and can be saved as a highlight button too, and condensed into a separate carousel post with all the posts in one.
#2 Showcase a product
For the second Creatrix idea we noted words to use in captions like:
- Natural glow
- Effortless enhancement
- Subtle, yet impactful beauty solutions
- A real-life ‘edit tool’
- Flawless
- Confident self-image
“Like a real-life ‘edit tool’ to lift, tighten, smooth, and boom! You’re the main character again.”
(Take words from the Creatrix Strategy for all the captions.)
#3 Post a Special
So for specials, we brainstormed ideas for the next two months based on products, services, and each business’s Ultimate Guides…
Example:
Jan: SPF Product / Preparations products / Growth serum
Feb: Valentines day package / Choose the hair extension that’s right for you / Choosing the right lashes – flutter eyes
March: Winter prep for chemical peels / Hair extension maintenance / After care lash extensions
After Care
Then the wonderful MedSpa queen herself, Sherry Thomas, the founder of Dusk Brand Studio, stepped in and shared the MOST comprehensive guide on MedSpa content for a million and one researched ideas ready for adaptation here.
TOP MEDSPA CONTENT: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/17-s4WVBQhvyrbqcF4wL-3ibMB518lJzp?exids=71471476,71471470
See how Sherry works with Creatrix here.
Follow Along
Now you get to follow along and support the women at work. See which ideas they post and how their accounts grow.
Here they are
https://www.instagram.com/ashbarber86
https://www.instagram.com/withyouinmindcpt
https://www.instagram.com/browsbyfadia
https://www.instagram.com/shameezhair
AND
https://www.instagram.com/_behind_the_reddoor/
Collaborations Continued
Even though Chloe and I each run independent studios and consultancies, we come together for bespoke brand campaigns. Brands that believe that business is an act of creation. For the sake of Art, not just for the algorithm type vibe.
We use Creatrix to handle the grunt work, the heavy lifting of market research and social listening. By automating the labor of data, we clear the space to be intentional, artisanal, and truly creative. Here’s what Chloe has to say about Creatrix and her approach to working with it.
Our Focus
We are coming together for select, high-touch projects within:
- Beauty & Wellness
- Travel & Hospitality
- Luxury Lifestyle Brands
So if that’s your brand, let’s chat.
And if you run a MedSpa, reach out to Sherry from Dusk Brand Studio.
